X1 Alpha idea

My first idea was the X1 Alpha from Future Cop. This is a game from my childhood I am really passionate about so I worked very hard to make the model look good and correct. Reference images were my biggest problem as this game was made in 1998 so the quality of the original model was very poor and the texturing was even worse so most of my reference look liked this

(1)

and with cinematic models I had trouble with poor angels for underneath the model and from behind so the original model ended up looking like this.

After getting feedback from peers they felt the model was too boring with not enough interesting geometry too it. My personal opinion was that the visor was completely wrong and the rear of the model was no way near detailed enough so I went back to reference imaging and found a blogger post (2) of a very detailed model which I used to fill in some of the gaps to make my model more detailed resulting in this version

Rendered in Maya

Rendered in Marmoset 2 using PBR textures

Using Substance painter I textured the model and got feedback on it from two groups on Facebook called Ten Thousand Hours (3) and  Next-Gen Hard Surface (4) and the overall comments were model is good, textures are bad. The comments were very helpful and one member went so far as to make a small diagram explaining so tips to improve which I found massively helpful (see below.)

(5)

This proved very useful on the 3rd texture attempt using Substance Painter. I also found a tutorial from the Allegorithmic YouTube page (6) which really helped and taught me about Generators and how useful they can be to create accurate dirt and metal wear. The result being this.

Screenshot from Substance Painter

I tested out the Generators on only the body before I went any further and the general consensus for the Facebook groups were positive but a Normal map would help the Generator work out the angles of the model and therefore the best place to add the metal edge wear.

Unfortunately Substance Painter has started crashing every time I try to open this project so it has been placed on the back burner. If I were to use this idea as my project the first thing I would do would be to create a high poly version of it and put it in a scene. This was something I did with the original model however my peers said that he diorama actually overpowered the model so if I were to do a diorama again it would have to be something subtle that complimented the model instead of take it over. I would also work on learning Substance Painter and learn more tricks to get better results to really make my model pop however this could be said for all my ideas.

References:

(1) https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ru/b/b2/459030-future-cop-l-a-p-d-windows-screenshot-future-cop-vs-tank-platoons.jpg

(2) http://ben-yohanan.tumblr.com/post/62044682236/tac-x1-alpha-referenced-from-eas-futurecop
(3) https://www.facebook.com/groups/tenthousandhours/
(4) https://www.facebook.com/groups/nextgenhardsurface/
(5) http://ben-yohanan.tumblr.com/post/62044682236/tac-x1-alpha-referenced-from-eas-futurecop
(6) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5p95HTvVsA&index=10&list=PLB0wXHrWAmCyJEDZLLQvusBxDbskFmh9K